1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vacuum packing apparatus for a field emission display (FED) and a method thereof, in particular, to a tubeless vacuum packing for a FED using a glass-to-glass bonding in the high vacuum apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A cathode tube vacuum packaging method is a typical vacuum packaging technique for the FED. In this method, a gas existing in the interior of the FED is ventilated to the outside using a ventilation tube, and then the ventilation tube is cut to separate the FED from a pumping apparatus and then the cut ventilation tube is sealed. The above-described procedure is known as a sealing process. The sealing process is divided into two steps. In the first step, when the state the pump is operated, a predetermined portion of the ventilation tube is heated and made into a semi-melted state. In the second step, the ventilation tube is cut and then the cut ventilation tube is sealed for thereby maintaining a sealed state for the FED. When sealing the cut ventilation tube, since the ventilation tube is in a semi-melted state and then hardened, a predetermined amount of gases is generated during the above-described sealing procedure.
When vacuum packaging the FED using a ventilation tube according to the prior art, since the inner volume of the FED is relatively smaller compared to the cathode tube, the vacuum degree of the interior between the panels of the FED is significantly affected by the gases generated in sealing the ventilation tube, although the type of gas is not an important factor for the relatively large cathode tubes. In addition, the vacuum degree which is required for the interior of the FED should be more than 10.sup.-6 torr. However, the gases generated inside of the FED during vacuum packaging, in particular, when the ventilation tube is sealed may not be effectively ventilated, the vacuum degree of the interior of the FED is decreased. Furthermore, a part of the cut ventilation tube remains in the panel of the FED, so that the thickness of the panel increases. In addition, the ventilation operation of the gas may be affected by the extension of the ventilation tube.